


Snapshot With Cigarettes and Morning Light

by paintbox (imstillprettyodd)



Category: Led Zeppelin, Rock Music RPF
Genre: 1970s, F/M, Light Angst, Office Sex, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, my love for late 70s jimmy rears its head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:29:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imstillprettyodd/pseuds/paintbox
Summary: Monica and Jimmy take a break in the London Swan Song Offices.





	Snapshot With Cigarettes and Morning Light

The chair creaks as Jimmy rises from it. His hands are empty, having set down the pile of papers he was scribbling at on the desk.

"Monica," he breathes. Her gaze shoots up from the magazine, dogeared at an article about the band. "Unbutton your trousers."

His abruptness doesn't surprise her. These little bursts of desire have been frequent during the aftermath of recording (he had even called her up halfway through their second week and flew her out all the way to Munich). And she isn't bothered by them, they're a reminder that he still craves her, still wants to taste her after everything. She likes feeling loved.

Her fingers work at the zipper and she forces the corduroy fabric down to her ankles, stopping to undo her platforms. Jimmy locks the door of the office and works at his own jeans. She stares at him for a moment, her lip caught between her teeth. She noticed the gray above his ears a couple of weeks ago as she ran her fingers through his hair, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth have become more pronounced since last year. He twists his thin wrist, and right before her, dips his hand into his pants to rub at himself. She hurries with her sweater, throwing it atop the chair, and leans forward on the sofa, knowing what he needs, what he wants: bliss better than nicotine rush. After all this time, her mouth still sends him wild.

"Fast or slow?" She asks. Her hands gently press into the roughness of his jeans, curl around to cup his behind, finally resettle and rest at his hips. He brings his cock from his underwear and she takes it in one hand, licking her lips and readjusting her sitting position.

"Fast," he breathes at the pressure of her warm, soft grip. "I have a call coming soon."

She takes him into her mouth to show that she understands. The nails of her left hand scrape the back pocket of his jeans. Monica swirls her tongue around the flesh and flicks her eyes to view his face in its open pleasure. There is no smug mask to put on with her, no words to make her blush and malleable and dumb. And there is no speaking to be done. She knows what to do, knows how to shift and move in accordance to the sounds he makes. He doesn't need to guide her head with his palms, although he buries his fingers in her curls and plays with them, and she can hear the content in his groans. For these moments, he's relaxed, mind blank, mind open. When was the last time he's been comfortable?

Her lips wrap over him and she fits him down her throat. Over time, she's gotten good at taking all of him. But he bucks his hips with a curse and her gag reflex hits. His knee knocks into her own leg. She pulls away with the sting of tears and licks at his tip to keep from losing her pace. She fits her hand underneath his shirt and feels the warm sharpness of his hip. With the other, she pumps at his shaft, her palm and soft swells of her fingers wetting from the saliva already coating him. Monica knows he's on the precipice by the way he tilts forward on the balls of his feet, closing in on her, a shadow over her kneeling, giving form. She feels his body tighten beneath her touch and he lets a long, breathy sigh exit his mouth. He tastes bitter on her waiting tongue, he has recently, as if he's just taken cold medicine, but she licks him clean and lets the flavor linger in her mouth.

Monica falls from him and reclines, staring at the movement of his fingers placing himself back into his pants. He forgets to zip the zipper and brings the telephone to the edge of the desk nearest him. He lowers to his knees and slides Monica's orange panties to the floor, spreading her with both hands set against her inner thighs. She shifts her hips closer and before she can truly prepare herself, he begins to swirl his thumb around her entrance, collecting her wetness.

She opens her mouth and her eyes won't leave his face. They move across it rapidly, taking in the image of him before her, as much as they can get. He stares back, his mouth a line, his expression focused, his breathing steady. She reaches and clutches at a fold of his dark blazer for a moment.

The telephone rings and Jimmy stretches to grab the receiver from the desk, bringing it to his ear and supporting his bent elbow on her knee. He's still got his thumb pressed to her and her nerves are still receiving the sensation of his movements when he breathes into the telephone.

"This is Mr. Page." He pushes his index finger inside of her.

She holds back a gasp. Jimmy's eyes focus on her--lids fluttering, toes finding grip in the carpet, the sweat beginning to break at her forehead, despite the coolness of the room-- before him. The sound of muffled talking disrupts the near-silence of the room, save for the slick noises coming from between her legs every time Jimmy slides his finger away.

"Yes, I already spoke to them about it. It's being arranged."

Monica's legs spread farther and her foot presses against his bent knee. He speeds the movement of his thumb, circling at her clit and making electricity climb up the base of her spine.

"Right. I have the date, yes." He adds his middle finger, entering her until the metal band of his ring is wet and imposing at the boundary of her entrance. Her brows knit when his fingers curl and sit flush against her wall. She clenches around him involuntarily. To keep herself sane, she admires the shine on the curled cord of the receiver, how the light from the window illuminates the cream tone.

"In fact, I'm working on it now," Jimmy moves toward her, bringing his lips to the bend of her knee--sensitive, soft, fleshy skin. A slight pause. "Have I ever broken my word with you?" He mumbles, pulling away to annunciate and drive his fingers faster into her.

Monica moans out loud and her hips writhe. The hair falling onto his shoulder shakes from the motion of his arm and all she truly wants to do is bury her face into the thick curls and give up her will, her body--skin, blood, muscles, bones--to him. It was all she had ever wanted to do from the beginning. He draws himself up towards her and kisses her. She watches as he pulls away, his lips now stained with the red of her lipstick.

"I will. Thank you, goodbye." He sets the receiver back onto the desk and lowers his mouth between her thighs, replacing his thumb with his tongue. It makes her cry out into the office, loud enough that she clamps her hand over her mouth and looks down at Jimmy's moving head with pleading eyes.

When they were both younger at the start she would cry out his name on hotel room beds, hum "I'm yours, I'm yours," into his ear until the words faded and became noise. But all sounds are frozen in her mouth, caught, tied with a string, and Jimmy's fingers, his tongue, his scent, his body between her legs, are threatening to untie it.

His lips curl and pull around her slick nub and her chin rises to the ceiling. The insides of her eyelids are bright-toned from the daylight coming in through the window. She thinks she should make a painting about this moment. Blues and pale creams swirling--some version of synesthesia with a bright yellow bursting from the middle like a clouded sun.

Jimmy sucks at her and loses the speed of his fingers, but it's fine because her stomach twists. Her breathing is choppy like inconsistent waves on a rocky beach, and she blindly runs her fingers along his scalp.

She soaks his fingers when she comes. He allows her to push against him, to find the dregs of her orgasm before he pulls his hand and face away. Monica's left grateful and wired. Jimmy stands and reaches for the handkerchief in his jacket pocket, spreading his fingers, wiping at the mess between them while Monica pulls her pants from the floor, and then her panties, which she folds into the pocket. 

"It's eleven AM," Jimmy says, his eyes on the clock hanging from the wall. "Smoke break?" 

"Yeah." A breath huffs from her mouth. 

He leaves the handkerchief on the desk, dark and soiled with her wetness. She stares at the window when a hot rush of blood heats her cheeks.

The tapping of the cigarette carton against his palm echoes dully through the room. He lights her stick for her first and offers it between his fingers. He gives her sweater to her as well. She had almost forgotten she was only in a bra with the warmth in the room, but the sweater comes over her head, the cigarette transferred from mouth to hand and back again. She settles and takes a long drag. 

Jimmy matches her attitude: long body slanted against the corner of the desk, hand up near his mouth, eyes squinting to view her through the smoke collecting in the office. 

"They want to call it 'Obelisk,'" he murmurs and for a moment, Monica forgets what exactly he's talking about. She opens her mouth, it's her turn to speak. 

"But you want something more subtle instead. Not so blatant," she tries. Often she feels a step behind him. 

"I've insisted for 'Presence.' Why name it something so redundant? Besides, it adds more mystery to the object. I haven't show you the plans for the cover yet, have I?" 

She shakes her head and Jimmy turns to mess through the papers. Her forefinger and thumb come together to place a piece of hair behind her ear. If she could slow time down, she would. If she could hold this moment, this blue silence, in her hands and keep it close, she'd have nothing else to wish for. Jimmy from the side looks stick-thin. He has tucked his curls behind his ear and rolled up his sleeves, revealing the heavy blue veins that protrude along his arms, and the dark hair layering the skin. His cigarette wisps smoke from between the fingers of his right hand which rests on the desk.

Her lips press together and her gaze rises to his face. It's the profile she's gotten so used to. If someone asked her to draw him blind, she could. "James?" She's been calling him by his full name recently, despite the way his nose wrinkles every time she insists upon using it. 

With a turn of his head, he's staring, dark-eyed, tired, skin pale and face stubbled. 

"Thank you. For this morning, and the cigarette," she gestures with the stick between her fingers, "I really needed it."

"We all do sometimes," Jimmy says and takes a longer time than before collecting the designs. He moves slow, lethargic, Monica thinks he'll probably ask her to set up a line of blow when they return to the hotel. 

The corduroy pants under her digits are soft; she runs her nails along the grooves. A strange, distant feeling surrounds her neck like a restricting hand. She swallows to ease the pressure, "I remember the day we met."

He comes to sit beside her, pushing the first of the pile into her hands. It's a picture of a child with their back turned to the camera, a beige, long desert stretching out before them and rising into craggy cliffs. The black object sits beyond a wire fence. 

"I like it," Monica tells him. She receives another, this time a photo of the boat convention that had been in town a couple of months ago. She wets her lips, "You were so shy. I wondered how you managed to get anything done because you looked like you wanted to curl into yourself. Like you wanted to disappear forever. But I think that's why I sat down with you by the pool." 

"I'm not that way anymore," Jimmy responds stiffly and passes another sheet to her. Two schoolchildren and a teacher. The black object makes a return on the desk in front of the three. 

"I know." A curt reply. Monica shifts on the couch. She asked him in Munich what had changed, but he was unable to answer. His already drooping eyes started to droop more then, maybe from the cocaine or Quaaludes or the sleepless nights mixing and mastering in the studio. "You've changed a lot."

She can tell she's hurt him somehow, as if her previous expression were her confession of disappointment in him. He turns cold from her and she's left to stare at the blonde hair of the school girl.

"I didn't mean anything by it," she attempts to lessen the fog between them. "I..." she tilts her head, pulls at a strand of hair, "miss the beginning. Everything's become so different."

There's a sudden knock at the door and Jimmy's head finally rises, "Come in."

"The door's locked," Monica reminds him and stands, ready to resume her position of quiet listener. 

"It's locked!" The person on the other end shouts. Instead of waiting for Jimmy to slide across the room and get the door, Monica twists the lock and peeps around the side. 

The secretary from downstairs stands with her heels pressed together and a wide-eyed look on her face. "Hi," she smiles short at Monica, but cranes her neck to find Jimmy hidden in the office. 

"What's the matter?" Monica asks, thinning the space between herself and the wood of the door. Her slight power, after her conversation with Jimmy, causes a chest-filling rush. 

"Could you tell Mr. Page that Mr. Grant wants to see him?" The red of the secretary's lipstick is alarmingly bright. 

"Why couldn't you have just phoned?" Jimmy asks from behind Monica. 

"Oh, the line was busy earlier, Mr. Page," once again, she tries her best to peek past Monica. "But Mr. Grant is downstairs waiting for you right now." 

"I'll be down." 

Monica shuts the door and settles back to the couch. She decides she's finished with her cigarette and smashes it into the ashtray of the side table. What follows is the rustle of Jimmy putting on his coat, his heavy sigh, the scratch of the lighter. He walks past her with a tired pace; his feet seem to seep into the carpet. Monica looks away and her brows fold together. The door opens, the soles of his shoes touch the hardwood of the hall with a dull sound, and the door closes again. She brings her legs up to rest them on the cushions and shuts her eyes. 


End file.
